Soul Secret: Babel

Progressive Metal

3.5/5.0

With a history dating to 2004 and three albums under their belts, Italy's Soul Secret returns with their fourth studio album Babel on Germany's Pride & Joy Music label. It's concept album with a theme common to heavy metal: science fiction. Two astronauts, Sam and Adriel, are sent into space to find God, only to arrive at the City of Gods and find it empty.

Soul Secret

As for Soul Secret's progressive metal you'll find it to be a fusion of various styles: classic prog rock, modern metal, electronic music, and even some slight ethnic influences. One more obvious element is the juxtaposition of djent and shred guitar lines. Additionally, you will find the music within Babel to be rather complex and, at times, perplexing. But it's a complexity that stands on a dangerous knife edge. On the one hand the arrangements and their various musical parts are technical enough to both challenge and intrigue the listener. On the other hand, the complexity of those same compositions can lead to inaccessibility and so disinterest. In other words, Babel surprises you with it's immense and diverse technicality, but doesn't really connect with you. At least that's how I felt about it.

Essentially, I found that I had more interest in parts of certain songs, rather than the whole song. For example, the guitar solo in the latter part of Entering The City Of Gods. Another is the vocal harmony that opens Awakened By The Light. Or then there's the jazz prog fusion breakdown starting at about the four minute mark of In The Hardest Times. Very impressive. What I did not enjoy was Lino Di Pietrantonio's vocals. Mostly I couldn't understand him and his timbre seemed to keep changing from song to song. Also, in most every song there wasn't a discernable melody rising and flowing within the song to wrap your ears around. But again, that's just my impression.

In the end, if you want to enjoy Soul Secret's Babel and the complex progressive metal within, you'll need to listen to it several times to understand and appreciate it. Unfortunately, to do so seems more like work than pleasure.

The Bottom Line

If you want to enjoy Soul Secret's Babel and the complex progressive metal within, you'll need to listen to it several times to understand and appreciate it. Unfortunately, to do so is more work than pleasure.

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